Braids

by Karrie Zylstra Myton

(written August 22, 2012)

When I was about 12 years old, I decided that I had to learn to French braid my hair. I loved the way it looked when women’s hair moved in and through itself. I loved the very idea of making my own hair twist. Something about it felt positively romantic. So I tried. My girlfriend Colleen tried. We struggled. Our hair did not weave. Our heads did not look intricate. They looked more like a squirrel’s nest. And the squirrel of that nest hadn’t cleaned all winter long.

On top of that, it was uncomfortable to hold my arms above my ears to try the weaving. Up over my head was not where my hands wanted to be. Still I tried. My girlfriend tried. We tried while we watched the silly movie Footloose. We tried while we sat in her parents’ hot tub on the back porch. We tried while we chatted with each other in her bedroom at night. It was no use. My blonde hair would not cooperate. Her brunette hair wasn’t behaving any better. I had a slight headache every time I attempted it. So did she. We gave up. No romantic hair for us. Only flat and hanging hair or up in pony tails. A pig tail at best.

If I have to guess, I’d say I tried for a few months. I’d also say I quit trying all together for about 2 months. And then one day, I tried again. Not expecting it would work, of course, but thinking it just might. And it did. Like magic. After spending months trying for it, I was magically able to do it. It wasn’t that I still didn’t want it. There was, however, an element of letting go. A sense that if it worked, it worked. If it didn’t, it didn’t. I knew I could live my life ok either way.  It was that I had put in the time, spent the hours of frustration necessary, given up and then something clicked. I never got to understand why it didn’t work before. I only knew that ever after that my hair behaved perfectly. Weaving instead of squirrel’s nests came from my fingers.

The Divine often works this way for me. I pray. I reach. I ask. I practice. I try and fail and try and fail. Then I give up. And then I try one more time. That’s when magic happens. I see this happen in others around me, too.

Today my sister got a call from a principal offering her an interview for a teaching job she hadn’t even applied for. In the past three years, she’s applied for more jobs than I can begin to count. She keeps applying, sometimes quitting, sometimes sinking into a black despair, sometimes hoping only to see those hopes crash again. Her hands hurt from holding them up. I’m hoping that she’s put in the time now. I’m hoping that this call is the magic of that braided hair. It’s worked that way so many times.

Sarah of the Israelites got her baby Isaac this way. Jonah got out of the whale this way. Ruth found her husband Boaz this way. Christ rose from the grave this way. Gandhi won freedom from England this way. Martin Luther King, Jr. ended legal segregation this way.

I don’t suppose it makes all that trying and failing less frustrating. But it does make it seem less fruitless to know that it’s all a part of getting to where Grace brings us into the weaving and out of the messy nests that our first attempts always look like.